


In Orbit

by guineapiggie



Series: Against Better Judgement [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Inspired by Music, but better than nothing?, conversations over the counter, it's just a spare bit of text, so melodramatic, there's something about mobster setting and old music that I can't resist I'm sorry, you can't even call this a drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 05:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9421220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: "D’you think we’d have ended up like this if we were normal people?” she asks, one night, while she sets a glass of wine on the counter for him.“Like what?”She rolls her eyes and waves at the space between them, refusing to answer; maybe because someone could hear, maybe because she just can’t put it into words.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There's just something about this setting that screams for old music - it was this or Edith Piaf (I am not above hitting y'all over the head with _je ne regrette rien_ so be thankful I went Sinatra instead ^^)  
>  (also this is so short I could've fit the whole thing into the description, I'm sorry!)
> 
> (The passage about the planets as well as the title were inspired by someone's tumblr tag underneath some kind of rebelcaptain GIFset. No kidding. It said something like _stop ORBITING each other_ \- it was a collection of moments where they circle each other like they were in that Pride and Prejudice dancing scene - and the _beauty_ of that metaphor just hit me. I guess that person probably meant nothing by it but I mean it fits so perfectly I can't even - )

_I know I stand in line, until you think you have the time_  
_To spend an evening with me_  
_And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance_  
_You won't be leaving with me_  
  
_And afterwards we drop into a quiet little place_  
_And have a drink or two_  
_And then I go and spoil it all, by saying something stupid_  
_Like: "I love you"_

\- from "Something Stupid" sung by Frank and Nancy Sinatra (1967)

 

* * *

 

 

“D’you think we’d have ended up like this if we were normal people?” she asks, one night, while she sets a glass of wine on the counter for him.

“Like what?”

She rolls her eyes and waves at the space between them, refusing to answer; maybe because someone could hear, maybe because she just can’t put it into words.

(He didn’t really need to ask, he _knows_ – the way they’re not together, because they can’t be; the way they keep on gravitating towards each other, like two planets in the same system – alone in the darkness and emptiness of space, going in circles, pulled towards the same bright centre, never to touch, never to stop.  
The way thinking of her always has so much sadness in it that she doesn’t feel like an affair but more like an ex he is perpetually heartbroken over.)

He spins the glass in his hands, listens to the old music clanging from the cheap speakers, and says: “Something like that song, I guess.”

"Really, Mateo?" (She has a way of saying this name like it's an inside joke, with just enough affection underneath to get away with it, and that's the only way he can still stand to hear anyone call him that - even if she's toeing the line of blowing his cover the way she rolls a laugh and a sigh and a little contempt into these three syllables and says her lover's name like it's a joke to her.)

Jyn raises a brow and keeps polishing the glass in her hand, listening for a moment. “ _You_ come at me with _Sinatra_?”

He returns her look. “Yes. I know Frank Sinatra. Don’t look so shocked.”

Jyn smiles and shakes her head. “ _Something Stupid._ Yeah, I can see that, I guess.”

(This is the closest he ever comes to voicing his feelings in a setting that isn’t his lips on her skin, swallowing the words before the world can remember them. _Something Stupid_ indeed.)

 

 

 

 

[This is what I meant by "orbiting"](http://ruby-red-inky-blue.tumblr.com/post/156392489347/mell-bell-the-power-of-a-glance-has-been-so) (those are not my GIFs!)


End file.
